Hampi.... the silent marvel !

Hampi and Jog, the two famous  iconic things in karnataka state. It's been six years since I am in this state and I had not  visited both, but always wanted to. In order to materialize that we set forth to Hampi last weekend. Myself,two of my roomies and another friend who was a last minute entry, got into the rajahamsa from Udupi to Hospet on saturday night.
   Reached at Hospet KSRTC bus stand around 7 in the morning, and from there itself we got the bus to Hampi. From that moment everything was different, There were red heads, blondes, blacks and mandarin people in the bus along with us Indians in that bus, giving a sense of a distant place.After a splendid view of boulders and some ruins,we reached Hampi bus stop in 20 minutes. Hampi Bazaar is adjacent to the bus stop. Going somewhere as a pack of guys has its own advantages, we can wander like lost souls without any planning. The minute there is a girl in the pack, we need to be more responsible and to some extend we require some planning. 
    So we bunch of boys saw a comfort station at Hampi bazaar and got ready from there to explore Hampi- cheap and best! The eateries at Hampi bazaar are nothing fancy and all look like greasy spoons but, most of them serve delicious food. We gorged on some hot idlis and pooris. The uncle at the hotel lead us to a place where we could hire bikes/ cycles etc. We chose two kinetic honda  plus 2 liter fuel for each, Totally it came up to Rs 540/- .We bought a map from a local book store and set forth to Hampi. Time was 8:30 AM IST. Weather was sunny and no dark clouds.
       Hampi was a part of Kishkinda and the capital of the Vijayanagara empire. These empire was build by two brothers in-order to resist the Muslim invaders in India that time, and for that reason Vijayanagara is famous for its artileries and defence mechanisms. Hampi is filled with a number of temples, but these were not exactly places of worship as commonly misunderstood. All the structures were build at strategic points with speed and elegance. Most of the temples, various types of craftsmen like goldsmiths, weavers, architects used to work and stay, and the deity was installed as a part of the hindu culture. Exuberant architecture in Hampi range from monolithic ganeshas to ganeshas inscribed on small Ivory pieces. You can find a lot of influence of Ramayana on the inscribing on the temples and palaces. Interestingly other epics are not much protrusive in Hampi. 
      Most of the people start their Hampi exploration from Virupaksha temple, But in the spirit of riding Kinetics after a very long time, we pushed Virupaksha to the end. We started from kadlekalu ganesha to queen's bath to Zanana enclosure to Vittala temple to the tungabhadra river to the monolithic bull and finally to Virupaksha temple. In between we came back to Hampi bazaar to have one of the most delicious lunch. Out of the 38 places shown in map we could cover only 21 places in our limited time of one day. But it was worth the trip.
      Hampi altogether has a different feel from other historic sites. People are very friendly, A huge crowd of foreign tourists etc to name a few. But most of all when you ride or walk through Hampi, you get the feeling of lost in some other world in some other century, and this exactly is the reason why Hampi is different. Throughout Hampi you can see a scarred empire,which was build with care but but could not stay up against the ferocity and fierceness of the wars. Standing on ruins one can actually imagine the feel of pride and the blood shed followed that. The buildings and stone structures which fell in defeat to the war are marvel to watch, as I told earlier the way you get lost in another world.
    The hotels at Hampi bazaar had another surprise to offer when we dropped in for tea in the evening. That was the time we had a proper look at the menu. Menu had items from Europe, Americas, middle east even from Vietnam. We gorged on one of the best pancakes, and few other special delicacies.
     
 Whatever is remaining in Hampi is well preserved. Lots of description about the history and importance of the places are placed all over as shown in the picture beside. But the heavy iron ore mining activities in the neighboring Bellary district posses a big threat to the feeble ruins.


     To enjoy Hampi you do not need to be a history buff, what you need is a love for traveling and some imagination.


     I have fallen in love with Hampi, it has many stories to tell and I will go there again to hear them all. We returned back Sunday night back to Udupi, all exhausted but content and glad and took back a lot of memories.....